Demons Don't Know How To Love

Chapter 7. Black & White Feathers

A/N: I'm really sorry that I couldn't post new chapters for so long. Hope you enjoy this chapter! I will try to post one chapter every 2 weeks!

Waking up was difficult for me the next morning.

Despite the demonic healing, my body was sore after all the things Dante put it through. The demon was truly insatiable, and he tortured me with pleasure even when I begged him to stop.

Barely finding the strength to open my eyelids, I was forced to close my eyes again that very second. Dantalion appeared before me with a towel wrapped around his hips. The rays of the morning sun played in the drops flowing down his naked torso, making me thirsty and awakening the urgent need to collect every drop of life-giving moisture from his skin with my lips. Feeling the heat in my lower abdomen, I clenched my thighs and pulled the blanket up to my nose, as if trying to hide my desire from him.

"Good morning, my sweet flower," his whisper burned my ear, making me twitch away from him. “There, there, don’t be scared. I won't pester you in the morning." Contrary to his words, Dante loomed over me, resting his elbows on the bed on both sides of my body, "Even if I caught the scent of your sweet nectar again" laughing softly, he tilted his face closer to mine. "I know what you're thinking, my little naughty girl."

“Stop it!” I tried to make my voice stern, but the words left my lips with a hot breath and that did not escape the demon's hearing. Licking my dry lips, I exhaled, “You know I can't control what the seal does to my body. So why are you mocking me?"

Smiling at the very corners of his lips, Dante took a seated position and settled my unresisting body in his lap.

"Let me clarify something for you, my dear Dahlia," he tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and gently ran his fingertips along my jawline. “You see, the seal does not k****e a flame in you from nothing, it can only fuel your attraction to me. It throws wood into a burning fire, so to speak.”

“Why throw firewood at a damp match?” I tried to wriggle out of his arms, but his grip on my waist tightened.

"Don't try to fool me, baby. As cold as you want to seem, I know that your little heart yearns for me. You don't have to justify your attraction to me with the seal."

I wanted to argue with him, but I didn't. Why useless arguments? After all, he was absolutely right. Even though we were apart for so long, I still had feelings for him. And now, when he told me, albeit briefly and chaotically, that he did not really leave me on his own whim, these feelings came over me with renewed vigor.

"What are you thinking about, my little flower?" his lips pressed against the sensitive skin behind my ear, sending a wave of shivers through my body. “Your cheeks blushed so charmingly. Perhaps you want to skip breakfast and spend the morning continuing what we did last night?

I shook my head resolutely and jumped off his lap. Slightly not calculating the distance from the demon to the edge of the bed, I almost fell back to the floor, having managed to grab hold of Dante's outstretched hand at the last moment. The upper part of my torso hung above the floor for a second, after which he pulled me towards him. Everything happened so quickly and clumsily that I missed the moment when my face got dangerously close to ​​​​his stomach. Before I could react and move away from him, the demon's loud laughter filled the room.

“Darling, why did you refuse my proposal so vehemently when you yourself are so impatient to?..”

I cut him off with a targeted blow on the head with the pillow. Perhaps all my bright feelings for him were easily blocked by the irritation that he caused in me. I hid behind the bathroom door to the accompaniment of his parrot-like laugh.

After washing up, I returned to the bedroom, where the demon was already waiting for me, with my clothes in his hands and a smile of the Cheshire cat on his face. While he helped me get dressed, I stubbornly looked at the floor, the ceiling, or the window, anywhere but at his half-naked body. The bastard didn't even bother to put on his underwear while I was in the bathroom.

When I was finished with my dressing, Dantalion made me wait for him while he took a suspiciously long time choosing clothes for himself. To my surprise, he did not dress up the way I had seen him dress before. His clothes seemed to be more comfortable than the previous ones, but less elegant.

When we went down to breakfast, Logan and Christophe were already waiting for us. Dante flopped down to Sparks' right side and began to pile food onto his plate. The butler graciously pulled out a chair for me and asked if I'd like some hot chocolate. I had no idea what it was, but I agreed. Logan explained to me what was served for breakfast and helped me decide on the choice of food. I was pleased that the choice of dishes I could try increased significantly, thanks to the fact that I know how to use cutlery. I decided to have the fried eggs, bacon, and an English muffin. I must say that the food began to take on outlandish names! I didn't remember half of the words that Logan said to me, which is probably the reason why I chose the food that was most familiar to me.

After my plate was empty, Christophe brought me a cup of steaming aromatic drink. I happily leaned into the mug.

"Dahlia, I hope you didn't stay late at the library yesterday?" Logan asked, mixing some gray goo with jam in a bowl. “I don’t want you to overwork yourself. As I told you earlier, I didn't expect you to learn everything in one evening."

A deathly silence hung over the table. I shyly lowered my eyes into the cup, feeling myself blush. I hoped I could make up for all the information I missed the day before after breakfast, and I was almost certain that I could hide my irresponsible act from Logan. But his warm attitude towards me and unwillingness to put pressure on me caused me a bitter sense of shame. I shouldn't have let Dante's book distract me from my studies, if only because Logan and Christophe were trying to help me settle into the new world. Trying to learn something was the least I could do so that their efforts would not go in vain.

Noticing my mood, Logan frowned. "What have you done, Dante?" Sparks' voice seemed extremely displeased to me.

I looked up and met the demon's shameless smile.

“Oh come on, Logan. I wanted to spend time with my fiancée, and you threw a ton of boring books at her..."

"She needs to be educated if we want her to be able to go outside of this house freely in the future," Sparks said sternly.

“Relax, buddy, she doesn’t need it. Demons are perfectly attuned to life among mortals. And she's a demon."

Christophe appeared behind Dantalion’s back with a silver tray in his hand. "She's not a demon yet," the butler calmly stated as he took the demon's empty coffee cup from the table.

“Shut your mouth, goose, otherwise I will pluck all your feathers!” Dante snarled angrily through clenched teeth.

"What is that supposed to mean?" The butler's words made me nervous. How could I be anything other than a demon?

“Nothing important, my dear, pay no attention to our Christophe. The poor thing has dementia…”

With an annoyed hiss, Christophe swung the tray and hit Dante on the back of the head with it. I jumped up in fright and covered my mouth with both hands so as not to scream out loud. The two men clung to each other's clothes and took turns pushing the opponent against the walls. Black and white feathers began to fly around the room. I could hear Logan cursing softly over the noise of the fight. I myself could only stand and watch in horror as Dante and Christophe pressed each other into all sorts of hard surfaces, breaking furniture and dishes.

Sparks got up from his seat and slammed his hand on the table with all his might. "Enough!"

Both men froze, not letting go of each other’s clothes and breathing heavily. And only then did I manage to see Christophe’s snow-white wings. They were small compared to Dante's raven-black wings that almost reached the ceiling, but they were real angel wings. Christoph was an angel! Why didn't I feel this before? Shivering in disgust, the butler threw off the hands of the demon and walked back to the table.

“Please forgive me for my behavior, young master.” The angel bowed. Christophe looked younger by several decades. He wasn’t the same butler of respectable years, but a young man with beautiful features and long golden hair.

“I asked you a hundred times not to fight in my house!” Logan reached for his coffee, but there was a black feather in the cup. Apparently, having decided that he could not create a bigger mess, Sparks angrily threw the cup somewhere to the side. "Idiots, you scared Dahlia!"

Dante immediately appeared next to me, tightly hugging me by my waist. "Are you okay, baby?"

"What did he mean?" I looked up at the demon's face, but he pursed his lips and turned away. "Christophe," I turned to the butler, "tell me..."

"You haven't become a demon yet, child," he said evenly. "Your heart is as pure as it was in your human life, which means that this vile creature has not completed the rite of your turn."

"Is that even possible?" I whispered, looking back at Dante.

“I am as surprised as you are, child. However, the fact remains that your soul is not touched by filth, which means that you have the right to go to Heaven if you wish.”

"What?"

Dante's grip on my waist tightened. He finally looked me in the face, but what I saw in his eyes surprised me no less than Christophe’s words. He was afraid. I had never seen such fear in his eyes before.

Many questions arose in my head, and I did not know who to ask them.

If Christophe was telling the truth, how could I live so many years without aging or dying?

Why did I feel the demonic powers in me if I’m not really a demon?

And why didn't Dante ever mention that he didn't turn me?

“You have time to think about what you really want, child. Until you unite with the demon."

Was I not united with Dante? What do we call what is between us then? I was completely lost.

"Logan, I need to take a walk" and think about what Christophe told me.

"I'll go with you baby."

"No!" I put my hands on Dantalion's chest and pushed him away from me. "I'll go with Logan. And I will go to the library after…”

Dante's arms hung limply along his body. I knew he wanted to come with me to give his side of the story, so I was immensely grateful when he gave in to me and let me leave with Sparks. Rising up on my tippy toes, I kissed him lightly on the lips and hurried out of the dining room.

As soon as the door closed behind Dahlia, the demon and the angel locked eyes again.

"Why the hell did you have to open your f*****g mouth, huh?" Dantalion picked up a butter knife from the table and pointed it menacingly at Christophe. “Who gave you the right to mind our business, Mother Goose?”

“Her soul is pure, as so is her heart, devil spawn!” the angel began to tidy up the table.

“You have a very poor imagination, you know,” Dante sank wearily into a chair, “in so many centuries you have not been able to come up with a worthy nickname for me.”

"Because, unlike you, I never intended to offend you, old friend," the angel replied, without looking up from his work.

"You are a very boring friend, Mother Goose."

Christoph looked up from the dishes and was surprised to see his friend's sad face. Pushing the stack of plates to the edge of the table, he sat across from Dante and rested his elbows on the tabletop.

"Tell me, Dantalion," he clasped his fingers and rested his chin on them, "why didn't you turn her? Her purity destroys the filth in her. Your seal will soon lose its power, which might harm both of you... And I know you can feel it. So why?"

Dante twisted the knife between his fingers. "I gave her my word."

"Huh?"

“When we first descended into Hell, I wanted to complete the ceremony. But I didn’t want to take her by force… And Dahlia could think about having s*x without marriage…”

“I understand you are talking about traditional coitus only. Because your moans and groans awakened all the servants in the house last night…”

"Hey, sometimes a demon has to find workarounds too." Dante smiled sadly and looked down at the knife.

"You really are in love with this child, old friend, aren’t you?" the angel sighed and looked at the small figure of a girl strolling outside the window.

"I never told her about it..."

"That can’t be the truth! You don’t know how to shut up! How could you keep silent about this?” Christophe tried to cheer up his friend, but, as it seemed to him, he only made things worse.

Dante looked like he had been stepped on a sore spot.

“I told her that I was not capable of falling in love before I realized how I felt about her ...”

"Oh my God…"

“And now I’m scared that she won’t believe me…”

The demon turned his face towards the window. Dahlia looked lost, and he wanted to break the glass separating them and pull her close to him with such force that she felt his love with every cell of her body.

"Don't take her away from me, old friend," Dante said in a barely audible voice as he continued to stare at the girl in the window.

“You can't ask me for this, Dante. Dahlia was not destined to become a demon, and if not for your intervention…”

"You know why I interfered!"

"I do now," the angel shrugged. “She has the right to make a choice, Dante. If she wishes to stay with you, I will not insist, even if she does not belong with a demon."

“That's where you're wrong, Christoph. Dahlia's place is by my side!" the demon rose and loomed menacingly over the table, gazing into the butler's eyes.

The angel grunted and shoved a stack of dirty dishes at him. He wasn't going to start a new argument, knowing that they could end up in a fight again. Still, it was difficult to be with a creature whose energy is the exact opposite of yours in the same house. And it was completely impossible to coexist in peace and harmony. Almost every dispute between a demon and an angel ended in a fight, and they were lucky if they managed to get out of the house before they grabbed each other by the throat.

After such a sincere conversation, Christophe did not want to fight.

When Dante passed him with a mountain of dishes in his hands, the angel patted him on the back and busied himself with fixing the mess that they’d created in a matter of minutes.

Christophe didn't see it, but his gesture brought a grateful smile to the demon's face.